World War II had taken a toll on Great Britian and began the dissolution of the British Empire. As a sign of the good times ahead rationing was lifted for flour, the first food group that Britons could buy and sell at their leisure.  This was the first food that was lifted from rationing, while it continued for many others. At the end of the war Lord Woolton, the Minister for Food, warned that rationing would not disappear overnight.

"The food situation, far from becoming easier, may well become more difficult owing to the urgent necessity of feeding the starving people of Europe." Lord Woolton, the Minister for Food, 1944